The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get
by Measured
Summary: Wherein Akiha is determined and Umeda isn’t in denial. Akiha/Umeda


Title: The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get  
Series: HanaKimi  
Character/Pairing: Akiha/Umeda  
Rating: the general PG-13  
Summary: Wherein Akiha is determined and Umeda isn't in denial.  
Word Count: 1,034  
A/N: Sweet Charity, upon Misura's request for AkihaUmeda (or RyouichiUmeda.) Actually, the one I was writing for her refused to budge from a drabble. Thank God for unfinished drafts that Don't Suck. Thanks to Saaski for the beta.

I.  
If Hokuto ever set to take a route that was distinctly Akiha-free, the idiot would pop up iright in front of him/I. It used to be he had peace and quiet; he spent his mornings fighting with the alarm clock as long as possible before getting up to fight with his old coffee maker. Now his morning greets him with French Danishes and specialty coffee made to just the right temperature.

Sunlight streams in and Hokuto attempts to feign sleep, but the idiot sees right through this and wakes him with kisses just below his collarbone.

It was horrible. Really, all those multiple orgasms, all those massages and the--the idiot. He can barely stand it and he's got plans to kick the idiot out sometime soon....

Maybe next week.

II.

Nowadays even his family was edging in. He only brought Akiha so his mother would stop worrying over him being constantly single. Really, that was it. And Hokuto wasn't kidding when he told them that Akiha was his _Idiotic Pseudo-Roommate_, but Seira found it utterly _charming_.

She was charmed by him. The whole family was. With those honey smiles and the cookies he brought, he wound his way right into their hearts.

Hokuto most definitely _wasn't _charmed like the rest, but he put up with the idiot anyways. Akiha was constant motion and it was just too much effort to keep fighting someone who never ran out of energy.

Not that Hokuto was giving up or anything. He won his fair share of passive-aggressive battles, or so he told himself. Still the idiot would smile and smile back at him, beaming after every unkind word.

There was only so many insults one could say before it became _tiring_ and the idiot could outlast his energy each and every time. Eventually the rage and annoyance would bleed into mere fatigue.

And that grin would stay in place as if to say _I can wait here allllll day._

III.

Umeda's apartment had the faint aroma of baking. There was traces of powdered sugar, leftover donuts, and sweet coffees. Before Akiha, Umeda only knew one type of coffee: black. With no sugar, no cream. ("Straight coffee was the only straight thing about me," he used to  
say.)

But now Umeda could tell the difference between Mocha and Latte (his preference being Double Mocha with whipped top...all the idiot's doing). On the way to work he picked up a cup from a chain he despised. The worker had blond hair, and her smile is almost exactly like the idiot's. He threw more than enough Yen on the counter and told her to keep the change.

He didn't look back, 'cause he knew that he would see that same grin reflected on her face.

III.

Hokuto receives cards at work. Little notes scribbled with hearts shipped with a big bag of sweet things that he's started to not hate. He still doesn't particularly _like_ them, but they aren't _that_ bad. After all, it means he doesn't have to beat the rush for lunch, or spend half his break waiting in line.

Hokuto sighs and crumples the note up, but not immediately, not until after he's read it. It used to be he'd toss it as soon as he recognized the handwriting.

He thinks that all these carbs are going to be a pain to work off, but then, the idiot always has _plans _for--exercising.

IV.

There is a joke around the school staff that Hokuto has a 'wife'. (And the thing about the school faculty is that once they start a joke, they _never_ let it go.) Hokuto rolls his eyes and settles himself in for an irritated day. He goes through cigarette after cigarette, stubbing most out before they are even half smoked.

When he comes home, the apartment is spotless and there is Fettuccine Alfredo on the counter and homemade chocolate cake baking in the oven.

And try as he might, Hokuto just can't muster up the energy to hate him that much. Not with food that tastes this good.

Because, really. It is just the food. Really. It is.

He isn't in love at all. He hardly knows the meaning of the word (except for a far-off memory, like smoke) and it _certainly _wouldn't apply to some blonde idiot.

V.

Hokuto hasn't given up – far from it. He is just as cranky and not-in-love as he ever was. It's only that now he's recognized just how formidable a foe he's facing. Because Akiha just _did not give up_, and if ten years separation hasn't changed a thing then there wasn't much hope of him _now_ possibly finding some other young person (male or female, Hokuto didn't particularly care who the idiot banged) who wasn't a smart-alec, chain-smoking doctor who was still just in it for the food, dammit.

The idiot had dug his heels in and wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. So Hokuto could look forward to sappy cards and declarations of love at least every other fuck or so. He could look forward to massages – back rubs, foot rubs, drawn baths and being treated like a princess every single day of the year.

He could look forward to being the envy of his friends, straight and gay alike. And which of them wouldn't kill for a lover like that?

They could have him, if they could pry him away. Have U-haul, will tow. And Hokuto wouldn't miss him at all. ...Ok, maybe just a little. But only when he was hungry or without a lover or the bed was cold or he could use a massage. But that was all. He certainly wouldn't miss that smile, that haunting, made-of-pure-sugar smile that he saw wherever he went.


End file.
